Freak Show
by MagicInHerMadness
Summary: A collection of generally unrelated one shots that will be set in freak shows.


**A/N: So this is another assignment. I had actually forgotten about it until I got my grade today.**

I had to set the scene. That was the biggest reason that it worked. I had to look like I knew what I was doing. I put on my kimono, the skinning red silk gleaming in a way that made it seem like it came from somewhere other than a thrift store in Georgia. I wound a gold scarf around my head, teased my dark corkscrew curls until I almost had an afro. Sometimes I put on a Caribbean accent for the real skeptics. It made me more believable. But mostly I just stuck to my drawling southern accent. It was real enough to do the job. Then I painted gold on gold eyeshadow, and thick dark eyeliner with wings like an Egyptian pharaoh. I finished the look with deep red lipstick, the shade the roaming preacher up the road had declared "harlot paint." Whatever I looked like bathed in the candlelight, they bought it.

It was a slow night. Hardly anyone came to see the freaks in our show, so hardly anyone dropped in to see me. I didn't mind. I turned on my Nancy Sinatra record and sat back in my chair. Outside my tent, I could hear children crying, whining that they weren't ready to leave yet. They never came into my tent. I scared them. Funny, considering I was the least freaky of all the freaks. There was Jake, the contortionist, and Huck, the wolf man, and Sally, the amazon. Then there were Abby and Quinn, the twins conjoined at the hip, Liz the bearded lady, and Mellie the fire eater. Their likeness stared at visitors from huge posters that Huck painted himself and I had to hang around town since they weren't welcome.

Sometimes I envied them. They were the real deal. Their freak-ness was bone deep. Mine was just a costume, a play I put on for quarters. I wanted to be something real, something like them, something I could wield before the world to make them take me as I was or turn away. Being normal in a world of weirdos was the worst. The others got to know the truth outright. People gawked and reviled them openly. People didn't revile me until it was too late, until they knew the truth about me. Men found me fascinating until the show was over. Then I was just another girl.

The opening of my tent flap drew my eyes from the waning flame of the candle. A man stood in the doorway, wearing a white dress shirt and dark pants. His suspenders hung at his slim waist. I looked up at his face. He was sinfully handsome, with the kind of face promised to haunt you. And those eyes. Somewhere Sinatra was writhing in envy.

"Hi," he said. Why on earth did he need a voice so sexy? What could he possibly use it for other than ruining girls' lives? _Stop it_ , I told myself. Nothing good could come of falling for another good looking townie who couldn't handle the truth, who didn't want the truth.

"Hello," I purred, deciding to use my southern voice with him. He looked like he could love a country girl. "Please come in. Sit down."

He did as I said, scooting the stool up close to the table and leaning in to peer at me in the candlelight. He was even more handsome up close, with tan skin almost as dark as mine, and thick gorgeous curls. He was a doctor, a lawyer, a senator's son, Cary Grant's brother, or maybe a man on the run. And I would be his starlet, headlining a one night only performance. I smiled at him coyly, drew him in. "What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you can tell me," he replied, flashing perfect white teeth. He didn't smoke or chew tobacco like the other men who stumbled into my tent.

I reached for his hand and he gave it, his large palm up. My eyes flickered to his, that smile still going. The smile was the other thing. It had to be sweet, but mysterious, like I knew a secret I was dying to spill. Women read it like I could tell them anything. Men read it like I was poised to promise them something. A smile spread across his pink lips. He had picked up what I put down, easy as luring a baby with candy. But would he be the one to stay? Probably not. But I had to try, didn't I? I couldn't just let eyes so blue and a jaw so strong slip away. "You have a soft palm but calloused fingertips. You're a musician, a pianist."

His eyebrows raised in surprise, and he nodded quickly. "Yes ma'am. I just got a job at the Golden Day."

The Golden Day was the sin hole across the street, our number one competition. They had hooch _and_ whores. That combination beat freaks any day. But maybe the little juke joint wasn't so bad if they had a man like him working there. "The Golden Day? What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like that?"

He shrugged boyishly. He'd be an easy steal. I'd lure him in and feast on his soft heart until I got my fill, or until he saw what I was in the morning light and ran back home where he belonged. "I just wanna play, ma'am. Not a lot of places will take a white jazz musician."

I smiled, traced the lines of his palm. Cicadas hummed outside the tent. "See these two lines here. They're intertwined. You think with your heart, don't you?"

"That's what my mama says," he answered.

I traced a long line on his palm. "Your life line has a lot of breaks. You'll have many new beginnings. Maybe in New York or Paris, somewhere you can play jazz no matter what color you are."

He smiled, soft and sweet. "No ma'am. Louisiana's the only place for me. Maybe I'll get saved like Mama's been telling me to and I'll play for the church."

"Jesus doesn't like jive, sugar," I replied. I held his hand upright. "You've got what's called an earth hand, square palm and long, strong fingers. In another life, you were a carpenter, maybe Jesus himself."

He chuckled. "I doubt it."

The candle to our left extinguished and I let his hand go. "Spirit's are saying time's up."

He nodded then stood and reached into his pocket. "How much?"

"Twenty-five cents."

He dropped two quarters in the jar on the table then stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Are you really psychic?"

"Do you think I am?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. You've got a magic about you."

I smiled. "Honey I'm magic in ways you wouldn't believe."

"Tell me," he replied. There was a glimmer of sex in his smile that made him looked older than he probably was. His hair possessed the sandy brown of youth, but there was a manliness to his stance that told me he was no stranger to the ins and outs of desire. I guessed we were around the same age, though I had probably lapped him twice in terms of living.

I shook my head, still smiling. It was too easy. There was hardly any chase. "No, no. You should get on home."

"I don't want to leave." Of course he didn't. They all stayed to satisfy their curiosity.

"Well what am I supposed to do with you?"

"Whatever you want." He followed me out into the dark. Lightning bugs danced in the doorway of my tent until I zipped it shut. I imagined they'd followed him there.

There was nothing to do. He had invited himself to be my prey. He might only be mine until the morning, but that didn't matter for the time being. "I can think of something."

I took him back to my trailer, gave him moonshine that turned his ears red. We danced to Nancy Sinatra in my cluttered double-wide, bumping into my second-hand furniture as we tumbled to my squeaking Murphy bed. He laughed when I pushed him back on it. I laughed too. There I was again, pulling the same trick, falling into the same trap.

She crooned the whole time, drowning out the squeaking of the bed springs. In the dark, I couldn't tell whose skin was whose, or which of us had made the mistake. I had lured him in, but he had hooked me too. And he hooked me good, playing my body like his piano, fingers guiding and strumming until I produced the most beautiful sounds. I even let him kiss me on the mouth, something that I'd long ago ruled a no-go. It was too personal, too intimate, for someone who would be gone before the coffee was cold. But when he pressed his lips to mine, gently pulling on the bottom one until I opened my mouth for his soft tongue, I didn't resist. I acquiesced eagerly. I fell asleep swaddled in his arms like he intended to stay forever, and awoke to his quietly scribbling a note on my counter.

"I don't need your phone number. I won't call."

He jumped at the sound of my voice then turned to look at me. I smirked at his wild hair and incorrectly buttoned shirt. "I was just telling you I was going to get breakfast."

My smirk didn't move. He picked up the note and brought it to me. I squinted at it in the darkness. He wasn't lying. So why was I? If he'd been leaving a number, I would have called it, would have played out the lie that I was special until he didn't believe it anymore. The corners of my mouth finally dropped as I looked up at his earnest face. "Why didn't you wake me for breakfast?"

He shrugged boyishly, something I gathered was a habit of his. "You looked so pretty and so peaceful that I just figured… I thought it would be nice to bring it back to you."

I chuckled, shook my head. "You are something else."

He sat down on my little bed , dwarfing it, then looked at me. "Your name isn't actually Sapphire, is it?"

"What?"

"The sign outside your tent says Madame Sapphire. But Sapphire isn't your name, is it?"

Here was the moment. I could lie and play my game until it ran out, or I could tell the truth and lose right away. I shook my head. "No. It's Olivia."

He smiled. "Pretty. I'm Fitz. I'm not sure if I told you that."

He had told me as he drunkenly undressed, but it seemed he didn't remember. I nodded, extended my hand. "Pleased to meet you Fitz."

He laughed as he shook my hand. "The pleasure's all mine."

I lay back on the cot and he lay beside me, turning to plant a kiss on my forehead. I frowned. I'd never played this game before. He stretched out, pulled me into the muscular curve of his body. His stomach growled and he chuckled. "You know, if you were a harder sleeper, I'd be on my way back with food by now."

I snorted. "You weren't coming back."

He looked down at me with a serious face. "I was. Why would I leave a note and not come back?"

"You wouldn't be the first." He didn't say anything. I shook my head. "It's all a lie, you know."

"What is?"

"What I do. Zodiac signs are fairytales, and those lines on your palm are just lines. Tarot cards are pretty pictures and I pull that bone shit out of my ass. It's all a scam. I'm a liar." There, I'd put it out in the open. Now he saw what I was: a liar.

He blinked at me. "I know that. I'm not stupid."

We were way off script. He was supposed to be stumbling into his clothes and out of my life with some half-assed excuse. I wasn't sure what move to make. I couldn't start my lying now. I was too deep in the truth, too much of myself and not enough Madame Sapphire. And he was… I don't know who the hell he was. I'd never encountered anything like it, this game he was playing. He couldn't have really expected me to believe he was planning to stay around, to entangle himself with the likes of me.

"Then why are you here? Why did you stay?"

He blinked again then shrugged. "You."

 **A/N: Don't forget to review! XOXOXO**


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